“I thought that the public, America, needed to know how close this was, and that the evidence was overwhelming,” Paula Duncan said in an interview on Fox News. “I did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty, but he was, and no one’s above the law. So it was our obligation to look through all the evidence.”

It is kind of frightening that loyalty to Prznint Stupid could play itself out, even in a jury room. Anyway, if you read the CNN article, you will learn that the evidence was so overwhelming that the jury, even with a hold-out Juror, found the evidence compelling. They also discarded most of Rick Gates testimony because they thought his plea deal compromised him.

As we noted, Manafort’s NEXT trial has something like 400% more evidence, so we’ve got that working for us. Still, if 4th Reich loyalists can make it onto a Jury, the whole thing could go south, fast.

9 Responses to 12 Angry Men Redux: 1 Stubborn Juror

It’s a chilling reminder that Trumpism is pervasive and detrimental far more than just the news headlines we read daily. It affects courts, school boards, small businesses and all of us in other ways. It’s allowing racists, homophobes, bigots and swindlers to come forward to speak and act like their criminal president, with impugnity.

It will take a long time to excise this disaster of a president and his minions. I just hope it isn’t too late.

“They also discarded most of Rick Gates testimony because they thought his plea deal compromised him.”

Manafort’s co-conspirator, who admitted to crimes on the stand, and had absolute personal knowledge of and participated in the crimes committed by the defendant, is ‘compromised’ because the prosecutors gave him a deal for less time in prison boggles the mind.

Appalling that someone with such a personal devotion to Dear Leader that it DETERMINED their opinion of someone’s guilt or innocence before the trial even started was not identified and eliminated in the juror screening process. Appalling that devotion to Dear Leader tainted AT LEAST two jurors in a case that had little to nothing actually to do with Trump himself being on trial. Appalling that one juror was too ignorant and biased to even examine or consider some of the evidence presented. Appalling to the degree that a partisan judge commented on evidence, attempting to steer jurors’ opinions, and expressed open hostility to the prosecution’s case. We’re damned lucky that any convictions resulted, and given the system’s failure to screen out deplorable idiots, I’m not exactly optimistic that future trials will produce such lucky results.